Euro crisis: Britain got it right, and is consequently less influential than ever

Being a British Eurosceptic in Brussels means spending a great deal of time being patronized by not-terribly-bright people. I’ve lost count of how many times a Euro-integrationist MEP has tried to put me right, adopting the tone one would take with a recalcitrant six-year-old. The conversations usually end with the federalist delivering some utter banality along the lines of “If you are not present at the table, you cannot be part of the discussion!” and then wandering off with a delighted grin, convinced he has won the argument.

Not that this has been happening much recently. Derision is giving way to resentment, pity to open dislike. Brussels functionaries are feeling fragile, and, in their angst, they are taking umbrage at our imagined smugness.

No one in Britain should take satisfaction in the economic turbulence on our doorstep. The eurozone states are our allies and our customers, accounting for some 40 per cent of our trade. But British politicians and commentators are fantasising when they talk of “seizing the agenda” or “shaping the post-crisis Europe”. The fact that we were right when others were wrong doesn’t add to our moral authority; it makes us envied and distrusted. It’s not just that no one likes a smart-aleck. Some Eurocrats have actually convinced themselves that the present economic crisis is the result of a co-ordinated Anglo-Saxon speculative attack.

I had an extraordinary conversation last week with an Italian Christian Democrat who believed there was a British-American plot to destroy the euro. He kept ranting about some article in The Economist which had predicted a Greek default. I suggested to him that a) saying that something is likely to happen isn’t the same as wanting it to happen; b) The Economist is a Europhile paper which supported the euro from its inception; and c) the British government doesn’t control British newspapers. He was having none of it.

There is remarkably little we can do to influence the future of the eurozone. What we can do is to limit our own exposure. I am delighted that the Government, having compliantly contributed to the Irish and Portuguese bailouts, has now shifted its stance. My guess is that it has done so because it is belatedly listening to Parliament rather than to the dunderheads in UKREP and the Treasury who signed us up to the bailout mechanism in the first place. (“Don’t worry minister: it’s a tiny sum next to the influence we’re buying, and the chances of a default are negligible…”)

We should acknowledge the limits of our ability to affect what happens next. The only part of the euro area where we might – might – be able to play a useful role is Ireland. The Irish are our neighbours and our kinsmen, our suppliers and our customers. Ireland's economic recovery is a clear and immediate British interest. Even here, though, there is little we can do as long as the Dublin government is determined to stay in the euro at any price. None the less, we should stand ready to assist in the event that Irish politicians grasp – as their constituents grasped some time ago – that there is no purpose in continuing with the policies that brought the country to its present calamity. Here’s how we could help.